Human Rights Work
Over the course of his career, Cohen has been a tireless advocate for human rights. In addition to striving for legal reforms in China, he has been instrumental in realizing the release of political prisoners, including Song YongYi, a librarian at Dickinson College who was charged in China for selling intelligence overseas after he mailed newspapers, books, and Red Guard posters to the U.S. He regularly uses his bi-weekly column in the South China Morning Post as a platform to criticize rights violations in China and Taiwan.
Cohen assisted and advised Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng, after Chen escaped from house arrest in 2012. After a series of negotiations between the U.S. and Chinese governments, Chen was allowed to travel to the U.S. and become a fellow at New York University.
Cohen also serves on the Board of Directors for the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
Read more about this topic: Jerome A. Cohen
Famous quotes containing the words human, rights and/or work:
“The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend.”
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834)
“It seemed like this was one big Prozac nation, one big mess of malaise. Perhaps the next time half a million people gather for a protest march on the White House green it will not be for abortion rights or gay liberation, but because we’re all so bummed out.”
—Elizabeth Wurtzel, U.S. author. Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America, p. 298, Houghton Mifflin (1994)
“Women have entered the work force . . . partly to express their feelings of self-worth . . . partly because today many families would not survive without two incomes, partly because they are not at all sure their marriages will last. The day of the husband as permanent meal-ticket is over, a fact most women recognize, however they feel about “women’s liberation.””
—Robert Neelly Bellah (20th century)